the compulsion of society to judge

[BrainEater]

i think it's interesting... because it seems to me that in general society somehow works against the individual with pressure.
some saying goes like: "judge not and you shall not be judged." there is probably a lot of truth in that. but i would say it's
also surely easier said than done. because well it seems indeed that at some point the judgement can become compulsive.
the question is why. i think, because it's as if people define themselves through it.
hmm maybe it can seen like a refinement of authority, because logically i would say authority is more the judging part in a dualistic relationship that is defined by such a "roleplay" if we want to call it that.
and that is where the potential for abuse lies. (nice pun lol) so watch out folks!!!!! don't let yourself be fooled too much etc etc...
sometimes it's better to just chill and relax instead of joining the ego-mind-game of compulsive judgement. it's a silly game mostly.... as i see it, this shit can be like a mind game that can be like a mental prison or so. so...
beware!!!! just be yourself and be real!!!



peace

 

[EewDefining]

judging is not always bad,

If i see a crack head on the street, i want to make the judgment "oh shit, that's a crack head." Before I walk closer to him.

 

[ophiuchus]

of course it's easy for judgment to become compulsive. it is inherent in language! there is no black but compared to white, no good but compared to bad. language cannot truely define anything unless they draw a picture of what something is not.

p.s. i am surprised at such an apparently ignorant and naive example of "why judging can be useful". there is nothing inherent to somebody who smokes crack that should be avoided. would you mind explaining your logic behind that?

 

[EewDefining]

Judging is all around us. You made some sort of judgement, conscious or unconscious, to type the sentence that you did.

 

[Crimzen]

to not judge others is to take everyone at face value, which is bullshit because not everyone is innocent as they seem

i think its a very natural thing to judge others
it probably comes from evolution where one group of primates meets another group and need to judge from a distance before approaching one another
(like the crackhead example pretty much)

The key is to not judge others too harshly

 

[ararat]

judgement becomes, like many things, foul if it is done without love. without love, it becomes judgementalism, which is a trait in people that I cannot stand, and which, when done by myself, I certainly do not find enjoyment in. maybe it comes with a smug ego gratification, but enjoyment is something else in that case. some people like to stand on a (in many cases really shoddy) pedestal, from which they judge others for being different as themselves, or maybe not as wise, not as cool, not as intelligent, not as beautiful etc. mostly to support their own feeble self image of exhibiting exactly those traits (our society is so quick to judge because it is a very insecure society). so judgement is a survival strategy of the ego/semantic circuit, to put yourself on a higher place at the expense of others.

most of the time when a judgement happens, you preclude other ways of seeing things. the moment you decide on something "to be" that way, you exclude everything else it could be, and worst of all, you miss the real thing completely for your judgement. seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees. have you ever looked at the tree, thinking habitually at the back of your mind "that's a tree", and have you looked at a tree when your mind was empty of labels of that sort? quite a different thing. it's harder for me than with trees, but it was very impressive to look at people in that same way. yes, usually I might have said that this small russian family that sits next to me on the train is kind of pathetic, with their compulsive dvd-watching and booze drinking and child-ignoring, but when you leave the judgement aside for a moment and open yourself to seeing, you see the shining in their eyes and you are once again reminded of your own identity, because these people are just as much of the divine as you are. you don't see the shine in their eyes when you focus on your judgement of them. and it is at that moment of seeing that you become empathetic of their situation, not when your thought "oh these russian drunks don't know how to live" clouds your vision.

 

[ophiuchus]

i am well aware of the judgements going on around me, including my own. to produce a sentence at all is to produce a judgement, an assessment. like i said before, it is inherent in language itself; with words it is inevitable. what has not been explained to me is why we are making attempts at condoning the likes of classism and bigotry.

showing bias and discrimination of social and economic classes is what got us into the position we (as psychonauts) are in in the first place! is it that hard to see?

to not judge others is to take everyone at face value, which is bullshit because not everyone is innocent as they seem

im not suggesting to enter a situation blindly, but if one is actively putting people in boxes, then they will be too caught in their own mind to have a true connection with any given person, limiting ones opportunities and experiences very much.

my point is, there is something to be said here about intuition. if a person is stalking around yelling into the air to people we cannot see, making violent gestures, yes, it's probably a safe bet to leave them alone and avoid contact for the time being. at the same time, if one happens to encounter a relatively relaxed sociable indiviual taking hits from a crack pipe, would it make any sense at all to feel aversion from this person? now what if the violent person was somebody you had been introduced to by friends several days earlier and had chatted extensively with on several occasions? would there be more inclination to approach that person?

this is what im talking about. now granted, this is an example that uses observation more so than intuition, however the point still stands about putting people in boxes. it is only going to do just that. because someone is best avoided in a situation, does NOT mean that their actions reinforce any mental labels that we would put on them.

our mind tends to know when to tell us that a situation is iffy without our own conscious intervention. there is no need to not assess a sitation, but when we project that situation onto people we are making connections that simply aren't there.

 

[BrainEater]

well i think everyone has their own judgement programs going on. some are more original and some are just copied/adopted blindly. i would say a lot of people mostly aren't even aware of their judgements anymore. and then also the contrast/difference between authority and truth. it seems to me, some can't even see it anymore. because they are so fear-controlled
and in the grip of the matrix.
the thing is that a great amount of people can't even see reality anymore, because they are so caught up in/by their mental conditionings. some people rather blinly believe the lies, instead of having to risk the step into the unknown out of their little unfair worlds and familiar mental prisons.
the people that are ready or so can be unplugged or help themselves etc etc... however for others it seems too late. :| :?

actually it has in fact seemed to me quite a few times that the mind and the thought process has become the disease… this becomes obvious when you put your attention on your own intelligence of the heart. people who identify (too much) with their thought process and their mind are often quite likely to not be able to shut down/off their thought process and they become slaves to it instead of masters. how they just swallow the stupid propaganda pills etc etc...

i think for many judgement can become like a ego-compensation mechanism, too. it seems also connected to the propagated
compulsiveness of identity. like thinking you need this or that, to be someone etc etc... instead of simply being someone just like that lol or just be yourself :!: :!: ... poor devils lol... i have observed that for many materially rich people, conversely there is often a mental/spiritual poverty. probably because it gives fear more power. like if you don't own anything or not so much, you don't have to worry/fear
that you will lose it or someone will steal it etc etc.
if you fall into that kind of trap, i think it's like a relatively sure way for becoming fake/artificial. i pity the people who define themselves thru such superficial ego shit. but well then again some of them i don't even pity them anymore lol... :angry: :\ :retard:
but well maybe you have to experience it for yourself in order to "really learn it"/ "learn it the hard way"... ??? lol...
like morpheus said... "i can't show you the matrix, you have to see it for yourself"... something like that lol...


i have heard somewhere that security is a dead concept. it really makes some sense to me... why trade fake/illusory security for reality???

maybe the compulsion to judge has got to do with the compulsive idea of a definition for "normality". retardism at it's best lol.
when people learn how things are more a matter of perspective than they may have thought, will they see themselves and/or will they jump off the cliff like lemmings lol??? :lol: :lol: :lol:
or why don't they emigrate into a virtual computer reality so we can enjoy life more easily without being bothered by remnants of the idiot revolution etc etc??? ah well... just joking lol.... hmmm are kids without toys like retarded monkeys without bananas or more like car telephones without battery??
we perceive with the mind and the senses and they use each other as tools. it seems that the monkey mind is limited to trees lol. :lol: :lol: 8)
i dunno lol. i just don't buy the shit anymore and won't subscribe to retardism. i can make my own shit lol. :lol: :lol: :lol: 8)




peace

 

[Dyre42]

Personally I see judging as a combination of assuming, presuming, and jumping to conclusions. essentially there are the facts and then your opinion of what the facts are. Problem being is that most people assume that their opinion is true. So by not judging others you are just attempting to see them factually rather than subjectively. Once one starts looking at life objectively knowledge and experience gel into wisdom. Life gets a lot more interesting when looked at wisely with an objective point of view.

 

[toogoodforyou]

Wow, firstly you guys write amazing stuff, its great learning experience to read your posts.

:!: ... poor devils lol... i have observed that for many materially rich people, conversely there is often a mental/spiritual poverty. probably because it gives fear more power. like if you don't own anything or not so much, you don't have to worry/fear
that you will lose it or someone will steal it etc etc.
if you fall into that kind of trap, i think it's like a relatively sure way for becoming fake/artificial. i pity the people who define themselves thru such superficial ego shit. but well then again some of them i don't even pity them anymore lol... :angry: :\ :retard:

We talk about others judging but the truth is we all judge although we may not speak it out loud. Our mind is consciously or subconsciously constantly forming minor/major judgements when we perceive anything through our five senses. It's a built in trait for human beings which should be ignored most of the time since everything that arises in the mind is not true. I think this trait of judging where you constantly divide everything into the good, the bad and the ugly can make a person live in a state of perpetual anxiety. Maybe if we know the entire story of the person we would not judge him the way we would otherwise, we should learn to be mere spectators of our judgements than giving power to them. The more harshly we tend to judge ourselves the more harshly we judge others, so the people who normally point fingers at others are often angry themselves. At times judgement can be beneficial, as it will help us distinguish the harmless from the harmful and save us from a potential threat or a problem.

Secondly its a myth that all rich/materially affluent people are spiritually poor. A few people of the current generation of rich people are self-made and have become rich purely cause of their talents or innovative contributions to society, amongst them are people who are meditative thinkers. Its a free economy where anybody can become rich if he has the potential and attitude, although i know there are drawbacks in the current monetary system. Personally i am well off myself and know a few other rich people who have also worked on the spiritual aspect of their lives and are content with their holistic productive lives. You don't have to be rich or poor to be a meditative thinker or a psychonaut. Fears are something any person can have irrespective of being rich or poor. A rich person may fear about losing his money as you said, a poor person may fear dying of hunger or his wife leaving him

 

[ararat]

a saying goes "if you point at somebody with one finger, you point with three at yourself", I liked that one.

 

[ophiuchus]

people who identify (too much) with their thought process and their mind are often quite likely to not be able to shut down/off their thought process and they become slaves to it

hence all these ads for sleeping pills and adderall...

We talk about others judging but the truth is we all judge although we may not speak it out loud

this is true, and also why it is important that we play the mediator, the referee making observations.

this is why i like the concept of meditation so much. we take time to pay mind to our thoughts, so that we may resolve the thoughts themselves, and be at peace with them, as well as everything else around us. it's one of the greatest tools for centering the self.

 

[Mrjelly]

Hmmmm Interesting for sure!

Not sure if you have ever met people strung out on crack or meth but it can be a very dangerous situation. Perhaps it is better to say that one should approach with extreme caution. If the world is an ocean these people are predators and will in most cases take you for a ride if you let them.

I personally have never met anyone that lived on the street and smoked drugs like crack or meth that I would trust with my family. (that is not to say that they are lost forever but they could be in a very bad spot to trust at that moment of their life) Oddly enough they say that the people who are involved in banking and financial transactions like stocks and commodities have even more intense brain activity in the same regions when they make money. I would not trust my family around many of these people.

It is only my opinion but it is not good to be to trusting of anyone that you do not know. Naivety will attract the sharks like blood in the water. Approach situations with caution and proceed. Is that judgment, maybe but we do not always have the time to sit down and find out what a person is all about. We rely on past experiences and perceived notions to make generalizations about our surroundings. It may not be right but it is what keeps us safe.

What is disgusting is when a person or group of people use that against us to manipulate our thoughts and choices.

Just my take on the subject.

 

[zgoat69]

For SWIz, it is hard to judge others. He has been in the MA business for many many years, and has seen many many types of people. On one hand you have some seedy characters that'd pimp out their own mother for enough ice to get a hit. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the working class of "normal people" that do meth daily, pay for what they use, and function on a higher level than lots of sober people. The point is, a meth head is not a meth head as the media portrays a meth head to be. Its all about perception. SWIz doesn't judge cuz he has seen the evidence, and sees what the media uses to make their case against something. Its the same thing with the pitbull breed of dog. The news portrays the breed as some kinda social menace. This is the only breed of dog that SWIz has ever owned, and has never had one attack anything. The best dogs in the world, imho. But its all about what people KNOW. And if all you know is what you hear on the news or read in the paper, then your world view is limited to that knowledge.

 

[Mrjelly]

Hey zgoat69 I hear you but disagree with it. I have personally seen what the business does to a community. It is crazy to see a soccer mom go from cooking dinner for her family to turning tricks to get high. There may be a small percentage that use meth and continue to be functional but the majority of people end up going over board and losing it, maybe not at first but it will get most people sooner or latter.

Hey if that is what floats a persons boat then who am I to say what. I am just saying that I have seen people messed up on Meth do crazy things that they would have never done prior to being exposed to the drug. I am not reading a time life article to get this info or watching 60 minutes, I have seen it first hand. I do not know anyone that can seriously say that it is a drug that people can use in moderation, it gets people spun and now. I do not think that this world would be a great place to live if a larger portion of people started using it.

Another thing about meth, I saw it move into a crack neighborhood and convert a majority of crack smokers to meth. Considering the hold that crack can have I would say that is powerful.

What is amazing about this drug is that anyone can make it. It is not a difficult process to create the drug. Unfortunately they have banned the precursors and forced the production into Mexico. Kinda makes you wonder if the government is trying to make drug lords rich.

 

[zgoat69]

I'd say that's exactly what the gov't is trying to do. I agree, meth CAN (and does) cause many people to act as they normally would not. If anyone has firsthand experience with this, its SWIz. I DO believe that the responsibility for this falls on the ones providing the meth, though. If "dealers" provided high purity product at a reasonable price, and didn't force their clientele to turn themselves out for their own profit, I think most of what you spoke of could bee avoided. Its the fact that folks are putting cut up crap on the streets and charging people out the ass for it. SWIz never did that. If he saw someone really geekin, he'd GIVE them a half a gram or so. Yup, there are people in the dope world that aren't scum.

 

[Mrboxey]

I think what it comes down to is we as human beings have this compulsion to make everything fit into a neat and tidy little box, so that we can feel in control. We do this by judging people and assigning them to predefined groups. It makes our lives easier if we can just lump everyone who even remotely resembles a prejudice into a nice little category.

However, I personally feel this is counterproductive, and can actually force someone to be something they are not.

Take high school for example. I have seen where someone was assigned a label because of the way they dress, and because people treated them in a specific way, they started modifying their behavior to fit into that group. They wore all black clothes, but weren't gothic, or even depressed/mean/angry, however, the fact that they were ostracized and placed into that group then MADE them depressed/mean/angry. So, I think that us being judgmental can have a more powerful effect on the world around us than we realize sometimes.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged", "Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house" and many many other sayings that try and tell us it is wrong to judge people, and what is the first thing we do when we see people on the street? We judge them. What do we do when we see something happening? We judge why it is happening.

I used to like hanging around this one bar where all the "misfits" hung out, all the outcasts. I wasn't considered an outcast (completely anyway), and everyone wondered why I would go there for my Friday night drinks. Well, for one, they didn't judge. Didn't matter who you were, what you had done, what people said about you, once you walked through that door, it was a whole different world. They were friendly, supportive, and would gladly lend an ear and help out a friend in need. I considered that group of outcasts to be better human beings than half of the other people in the town. So, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

It was always worth the looks I got in public when one of the guys ("Snake") used to come into the local coffee shop and have a seat at my table and since he's a big guy, and has a reputation for being "bad" when he came in and sat with me, nobody ever bothered me in the street after LOL..

So... I feel that we need to be more accepting, and if we stopped judging in general, and really stopped to get to know someone before we judged them, we might find that they aren't so different after all.

Oh, and as a final note, say we do know someone very well.. Just because we know them really well, does that give us a right to judge people?

 

[Jazz555]

judging is not always bad,

If i see a crack head on the street, i want to make the judgment "oh shit, that's a crack head." Before I walk closer to him.

You are right and i agree with you.

 

[PostalPete]

Judgement is so hard wired into the human mind it is almost impossible NOT to judge any book by it's cover to a certain degree. What separates us is our ability to react to that judgement harshly or kindly or to pass on it altogether. What I mean by this is that even the kindest of us, have instantaneous judgement of those we first see on the street. But a kind person will pass on any negative thoughts when they see a scraggly, homeless person and act in a polite manner.

I just think it's natural for one to have judging thoughts spring into our mind, but our higher conscious allows us to react in a much better, kinder way.

 

[Hark]

we are just another class of leemings... what curious things we leave behind.